How Genes Impact Children’s Health and Development

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I am Dr. Nicole, and on today’s episode, we’re talking about how our genes impact health and functioning for our children. I’m not talking about jeans like the ones your kids wear and we wear, but genes as in genetics. Many people still believe that our genes are our destiny, meaning, they determine whether we have certain health issues, whether our children have things like ADHD, depression and lots of other stuff about who we are, but now we know that this isn’t exactly true, as the field of epigenetics has shown us that we have a tremendous amount of influence over how our genes are expressed. That means that the choices we make about everything with our health matters from the standpoint of working with our genes to influence our health and functioning in positive directions. To me, this is really exciting and provides so much hope to all of us, not only for ourselves but for our children as well.

To help us dive into this topic, I am honored to have Dr. Ben Lynch on the show today, let me tell you a bit about him. He is the best-selling author of Dirty Genes and a leader in the field of nutrigenomics. He’s also president of Seeking Health, an innovative company providing supplements, courses, and tools designed to help people overcome genetic dysfunction and optimize health. After earning his Bachelors of Science in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Washington, he obtained a Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from Bastyr University, where he now serves on the board of trustees. Dr. Lynch lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife and three sons. Ben, welcome to the show!

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Awesome to be here, Nicole! Love talking about kids and their genes, the ones that aren’t shredded with holes and weird shapes and whatever else!

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

So true. I want to start off by just asking you if you’d be willing to share for a minute how you really became the expert that people turn to in this area. So you got your degree in naturopathic medicine, you’ve got your background in cell molecular biology — how did this become a passion of yours?

Dr. Ben Lynch: 

I would have to say it became a passion because I have a core value of mine, which is to never settle. So when you’re learning as a health professional, such as yourself, you’re here in school and you have certain protocols and procedures that you learn and you apply to your patients, and a lot of them get better with that and you have success, and you’re like, oh that’s cool. But then you have other patients where you try those procedures and those protocols and supplements or medications or what have you, or homework that you assign to them and it just doesn’t work! In fact, sometimes it makes them worse! And there are health professionals that are happy with, “Oh, 80% of my patients get better, 20%, ah, not so much” or 70-30 or 90-10 or whatever that is. And I always focused on the ones who didn’t get better. The ones who got better — it was awesome. But when I had individuals who came in with heavy metal toxicity and we’d see that their mercury, lead, cadmium and so on were high, we would apply the protocol and some would just get horrible, and others would be just life-changing. So I asked my supervising doc, I said “There must be something genetic here.” He was like, “Oh yeah, but we don’t know.” 

So that was my initial inkling with it. And then it was Dr. Bruce Lipton’s work, the biology of belief, which was very, very profound for me and very exciting. When my step-mom told me that — I remember, I was an adolescent, I think I was 17 years old and I was standing up against the wall in the hallway, and there was my mom talking to this other lady, and they’re talking about me, and my step mom goes, “Yeah, well Ben, you’ve got to be careful because schizophrenia runs in your family, and when you turn 18, it could hit.” And I was like, “Gosh that is a year away, I am going to get schizophrenia”. 

So I had all these little things coming at me and to put this story to rest, I just really love succeeding and helping people get better and better. And so when my patient population did not get better, I was right there trying to figure out what it was and when somebody asked me about bipolar disorder, I just quickly looked up in research, because I knew the standard stuff, but I wanted something new. And I discovered this one paper that was talking about MTHFR. And I was like MTHFR what? And that started the whole snowball through one paper. Well, there you go. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, it is so fascinating. Now we’ve got so much more information, I mean it’s just exploding in this area. When you think back even 10 years ago, this stuff wasn’t on the forefront, and now there is so much information, but let’s talk about how it is that our genes are so connected to our health and functioning — we’ve been taught that, your genes determine, as you said, things like schizophrenia and certainly the population that I intend to work with in neurodevelopmental disabilities and mental health, there is a strong story line that people are told about — “These things run in families, look out, this is going to happen to you or your kids”. How is it that they’re so connected to that, yet they don’t absolutely dictate the outcomes that we have?

Dr. Ben Lynch: 

I like to make it really simple, and genes have jobs to do. That’s what they do. And if you have a specific gene that is not fully performing at it’s best, maybe you inherited a gene that’s maybe got 9 fingers instead of 10, it is trying to do a job — you’re still getting a job done, it’s just not as efficient. So when you’re born with a gene that is not perfectly functioning, there is still function there. So if you know which genes are functioning really well, to their fullest ability, genetically speaking, you’re like, “Okay, that’s fine.” But if you look on your genetic report and say, “Oh God I have this gene and it’s not functioning at its best”, that’s not anything to worry about. That’s actually a good thing that you know about that, because you shouldn’t overwork that particular gene. So if you’re tired and somebody goes, “Hey Nicole, let’s go for a 10-mile run!” You have two choices: You can say, “Ah, no. We can go for 2 or 3”. Or you can say, “Okay, I’m going to do the full 10-miler”. So if you have a gene that’s not as functioning as well, you’re born with a gene that is not functioning very well, and you know that, and somebody says, “Okay, let’s do the 10-mile run” You say, “No, I’m good at 7 miles.” So you know how to make lifestyle changes, you know what foods you should lean to, or which ones you should avoid or what lifestyle behaviors you should do or not do, hobbies and so on and occupations, even, that you should head into. 

So it could be really, really, powerful, and the first time I looked at my genetic results, I found that one of our children, my wife and I, he has the apoe4 allele, so high risk for Alzheimer’s. My heart sank. So here I am — we have a 4 year old boy and he’s got the apoe4 genotype and you look at the research, it’s like Alzheimer’s sky-high risk and so on, but I looked at — the first time I was scared. It literally took me 10-12 years later, after I understood a lot more about genes and epigenetics, that I realized, “Wow, that’s good information to have!” That is so important! Does he play sports where he hits his head? No. He wanted to do karate, he wanted to play football — No, not going to happen. When he plays soccer — you don’t head the ball. Sometimes you’re going to get kicked in the head, that happens. But now when he gets hit in the head playing with his older brothers, I’m right to specific supplements to knock down the fire in his brain. So there is a lot of good when you know which genes are not so good in your body. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

That’s, to me, the really exciting and hopeful part about it, is that a lot of people look at those things and they think that oh, I’m destined now to get alzheimer’s or my kid’s destined to have bipolar or these kinds of things, but what you’re saying is: because of what we understand about epigenetics and how we can support our body, support our genes to kind of turn those on or off, so to speak, that really is such powerful information for us because it allows us to be proactive. 

Dr. Ben Lynch: 

It does. 100%. And there are good and bad things about being proactive. One is that some people are excited to be proactive, because health, in my book, literally, when I wrote it — I said health is a 4-letter word, spelled W O R K. And so, there are different types of people. If you get a genetic test and you look at your genes, it’s like oh, I have apoe 44, I’m destined to have Alzheimer’s. Well, if I’m going to get Alzheimer’s, I’m just going to keep smoking and drinking and eating fast food because I’m going to get it anyway. But if somebody says, “Hey, Joe, why are you eating that garbage?” or “Hey, Fran, why are you staying up so late? Why are you on those toxic chemicals?” “Oh, I’m genetically susceptible to Alzheimer’s, so it doesn’t matter.”

But then you have the other people who are really driven and say, “Hell no, I’m not getting that. What do I need to do to minimize my risk?” And so, you can choose. And I have relatives that have chosen to live with their disease. They’ve identified with it and they’ve chosen to claim disability at a young age and I’ve told them “I can help you” and they were like “No, I’m good.” So, to each his own.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Absolutely. So when you use the term Dirty Genes, is that the term that you use going back to the simple explanation you gave us: Some genes aren’t functioning exactly as they should? You might have 9 fingers to do the job instead of 10 — is that what you’re referring to with that term Dirty Genes? 

Dr. Ben Lynch: 

Great question. There are actually a few different types of Dirty Genes, and I say a few, and I quickly recoil back and I’ll say two. So remember genes do jobs. They have work to do. So if I have a gene to color my hair brown, that’s what it does. Can we control that? Well, yeah, with hair coloring. But besides that — no. I’m 6 foot 5, there are some genes for height, but you can modify those, and there are genes for skin colors. I can’t modify that. So there are some genes that have their jobs and they’re destined and that’s it. Other genes, in terms of your neurotransmitters and how you think and how you respond to chemicals and how you maybe — fitness and digesting your food and all these things can be modified through your lifestyle and diet. 

So the two types of Dirty Genes are: You can have a dirty gene and be born with one. I don’t really like the term of being born with a dirty gene because it sounds negative. So if you’re born with a dirty MTHFR, which an MTHFR’s job is to make a really important form of folate, which our body uses for multiple things, then your MTHFR gene doesn’t make enough, potentially, and you can have issues with that. The other MTHFR type of dirty gene, is let’s say you were born with an MTHFR gene that is perfect, there was no genetic variation in there at all, and it was not slowed down and what have you, but does that mean that it can never get dirty? Does that mean that it’s always perfect?

So if you wake up in the morning — and your hair looks gorgeous right now, Nicole, perfect. And if you go to sleep for a couple of days or lay down for an hour and put on a baseball hat — it’s going to get a little messed up. So your MTHFR gene can get messed up for various reasons. You can be consuming folic acid, which is a synthetic form, which makes your MTHFR gene not work as well. You can be deficient in vitamin B2, also known as riboflavin, which that gene really, really needs in order to function. So some people need to wake up and have caffeine in the morning, your MTHFR needs vitamin B2 to function. So your gene can get dirty that way. All you need to remember is genes have jobs to do, and they need to perform and do work — and if you ever get confused about a certain gene, you just say, “What job does that particular gene do and what tools does it need? And what makes that performance of that job go down?” 

So if I pour honey on my keyboard, that’s a problem. I still have the 26 letters of the alphabet, but it’s going to be a lot harder to type. 

 Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

That’s a great analogy for that. Just for terminology, for some people who are listening who aren’t familiar with this — things like MTHFR or COMT or DAO, these are just referring to specific genes. And then SNIPs is another term that I think people have heard that I get asked about a lot. Can you just give a little explanation of that? 

Dr. Ben Lynch: 

Yeah. So a lot of genes have abbreviations, because when you look at the name of a gene, it’s extremely long, but the name of the gene that’s extremely long tells you what it does. So it kind of gives you the function if you are a biochemist. So if you understand your biochemistry well, and you know that MTHFR stands for methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, you know that it’s going to reduce or alter that type of biochemical structure. So it’s a gene that alters that structure in some way. And so it’s easier to abbreviate. So it’s MTHFR. And there is COMT: Catechol-O-methyltransferase. So it transfers a methyl group to catechols. That’s it’s job. So you’re like whoa, you talked about a lot of it. So you basically need to be a biochemist nerd to understand those things, so abbreviations are handy. 

And then a SNIP is: Genes are built with a DNA basis. It’s basically a bunch of little proteins, amino-acids. A long chain. When I say a long chain — gene can be shorter in terms of the number of amino acids in there, called nucleotides, or really long, and I think the MTHFR gene, I’m guessing here, I can’t remember, it’s been a while, but it’s like 16,000 to 30,000 nucleotide bases long. And in one of those locations, just one, out of the 16,000 to 30,000, just one location, there is this change. And that one little change is a change in a base, and there are only 4 bases. There is an A, T, G and a C. And so that’s the option. Sometimes maybe the A has to be there typically, in a typical population — notice I didn’t say normal population, I said a typical population. Maybe the T gets replaced with a G — and then when that gets replaced, the shape can change. 

So remember. Genes do work. So if you have a single nucleotide polymorphism, a single letter change in how the gene is made, their proteins and they can alter the shape. So if my hand is shaped like this, I can grab a baseball flying through the air. So I’m good at that. So if my hand is shaped like this and I’m trying to type, not so good. So remember, they have jobs to do. And the SNIPS, depending on where it is, can alter the shape of the gene, and the alteration of the shape of the gene changes its function. So when an MTHFR has that particular SNIP, that simple change, what happens is it alters how vitamin B2 gets stuck on it. So you need a lot more vitamin B2 than a person who has an MTHFR snip to help make it work better. So vitamin B2 makes it work better. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

I think that’s helpful because people often will come in, they’ll see me in the clinic or my community online and they see these things and they’re like, “What exactly is this? What are the…” So I think it’s helpful to define those terms. I want to get into how these Dirty Genes impact health and function, for kids in particular. I mean certainly recognizing that this impacts health for everybody age-wise, across the board, but specifically honing in on kids, what are some of the things that we should be thinking about in terms of these Dirty Genes and how they impact either our children’s physical health or their mental health and brain function. 

Dr. Ben Lynch:

It’s all the way across the board. You can have a kid who — I love acne, because acne is something that a kid will look in the mirror and is like, “Oh God, I have acne, what do I do about that?” You’ve got a motivated kid. And so I use that on my boys all the time! I know where their weak points are. So there are certain genes that get really dirty from processed food, and I don’t know what they all are, but when you clean them up and you support the liver’s ability to detoxify and process the hormones, the excess of estrogen, the excess of testosterone, which they do in these puberty years, then they don’t get the acne. So you just give the kids liver support and their acne reduces, especially if they minimize the garbage that they eat. 

But that said, other kids have genes which allow them to eat more junk food because they have other genes which have the ability to clean up that mess a lot faster. So let’s talk about possible ADHD or maybe that really driven, competitive kid. Because I have two types — I share stories in Dirty Genes about my own boys. So Tasman, my oldest, is very ADHD. He can be just all over the place, but at the same time, he loves having friends around. He’s a social butterfly, he’s very active and outgoing, he can’t sit still and not do anything. When he goes skiing, he has no fear! He’s like, “Hey dad, let’s hit this shoot!” I’m like, “Uh, heh, no I’m good!” And Matthew, my middle son, who does not have this ADHD tendency, he and I look at the shoot, we’re both together, we’re very similar, the same genes, very similar genes, we’re both “No we’re good.” 

So why does a kid like Tasman want to hit that powerful shoot and surround himself with a bunch of friends and always be busy, whereas Matthew can just sit idle in his room, not go down the shoots, and be really focused? It’s all about dopamine levels. 

So there is a particular gene that helps eliminate dopamine. So you’re like, well why would you want to do that? So you can sleep! When you get too much of something, too much of something isn’t good. I mean imagine if your husband or your wife was just hugging you all day long! It’s a good thing, but enough is enough! It’s a little too much! So COMT’s job is to help get rid of dopamine, and Tasman, his COMT gene is very fast. It’s just like dumping dopamine. So Tasman seeks things that increase his dopamine. Fast food! Attention! Negative Attention! Parents, when you scream and yell at your kids, you drive their dopamine and norepinephrine up. Yes, it’s a negative experience for them initially, but they’re left unconsciously feeling better because it’ll lift the dopamine and all that. 

So when you say, “Oh, what are you doing, seeking negative attention?” They’re like, no, no, no, but unconsciously they are because you’ve lifted that fight or flight response out of them, so what do you do? So if someone has that, you increase their protein, you reduce their carbohydrate intake. Maybe you supplement it with some certain things like inositol or 5-HTP or tyrosine — these things can be game changers. So when you notice how your genes are in your child, and you know just how to modify them a little bit, great things can happen. And so Tasman’s ADHD will be gone and so I’ve noticed lately his ADHD is a bit pretty high-level right now. And I haven’t looked at his diet, but I’m thinking that he is… I let him go, but not to change the subject, I think there are definitely food allergy components to this too. So I think he’s eating a bit too much gluten and dairy, which I keep telling him not to, but it’s his choice. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

And if they get to those older ages, and I know because my kids are all 13-20 now, they get to those older teen years, and you have to — they have to discover those connections for themselves, right? Because they’ve got to make those choices for themselves and understand, we can give them the knowledge, we can give them the information, but they have to make the choice and realize how things feel to them. 

Dr. Ben Lynch: 

Yeah. Tasman sometimes has this throat clearing going on. I was like “Hey man, what’s up? Are you getting sick?” 

“No, no.” 

“Okay. You think you might have an allergy? You eat too much wheat or dairy lately?” 

“Yeah, maybe.” 

Plant the seed. I’m always noticing their weaknesses. “Hey man, I see you got some acne today, what’s up?” 

“Oh, I went to Chick-Fil-A last week.” 

“Okay.” 

As long as they know! 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

That’s important. You’ve touched on a couple of things that can make our genes dirty. You mentioned processed food is one that can dirty up our genes. You just talked about foods, maybe things that we don’t necessarily think of as fast food or bad foods, but things like gluten, dairy, things that our body doesn’t tolerate, that those can contribute. What are some of the other contributors to Dirty Genes?

 

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Let’s talk about good ones! Let’s talk about tyrosine. There’s a story, as I talk in the book. So tyrosine is a supplement that helps make dopamine, and you’re like, “Wow, that’s awesome!” Uh… for certain people! You wouldn’t me taking tyrosine, because I would turn into an angry monster. Too much dopamine leads to irritability. So Tasman, as I describe in the book — ADHD, he has a fast COMT. So you take a quiz in the book to see where your kid is or where you are, and when you take these — an important thing about the quizzes in the book, take them with the mindset of how you are acting or how your child is, at the moment. This is not like a set-in-stone test. It’s in the moment. And I wasn’t clear about that in the book. That’s a failure that I’ve noticed. So notice, I’m always working on weaknesses. 

So I took the test for him, and he had definitely a fast COMT because he has ADHD-like symptoms, he was around people, he has high-risk, addictive-type behaviors, he loves shopping and buying new things, the anticipation of it — once you buy him that new thing, then it’s satisfaction for about an hour, right? And it’s like on to the next! I’m always telling him that. So what do we do?

Well, you’ve got to eat more protein. He has been doing that, which is good. But he’s also lifting a lot of weights, he’s exercising more, he’s growing, so he’s using up that protein. So then, what do you do? You add a supplement. So I can add inositol or tyrosine or 5-HTP for him and watch and see what happens. So we were using tyrosine. So tyrosine was given to him, just one capsule, 500mg and he came home on his own after about a week or two and was like, “Dad, I’ve been really able to focus at school. It’s like a crazy noticeable difference.” He’s 17 now, but when a 14 year old tells you that, that was significant. I was like, “Cool, awesome!” I was like, “When you eat more protein, you’re going to have to back that off.” 

“But why? It’s working!” 

“Because you’re going to get too much tyrosine and you might get irritable and cranky.”

He goes, “Can I just take this bottle and put it in my bedroom?”

“Sure.” 

So he would wake up in the morning, pop a tyrosine, all on his own at 14, 15, 16 and I don’t know if he’s still doing it. So he would do it — and then there were like two weeks where I was just screaming at him and he was just being stupid and he was mad and he was screaming at all his brothers and his mom and me, it’s just like constant fighting, and finally I just removed the dad hat and I went to my doctor hat and I looked at him and I said, “Dude, what’s up? Girlfriend break up with you or what?”

“No. No.”

“Then what’s going on?” 

“Nothing, everything’s fine.”

I said, “No, it’s obviously not fine. You and I have been fighting for weeks. How much tyrosine are you taking?” 

“I don’t know. 2, 3, 4? Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t work anyway.”

“Oh. Interesting. Stop taking it for a while.”

“Why? I need it.” 

“Just stop taking it.”

He stopped taking it, got Tasman back. So when you think a supplement is always cleaning, remember genes do work. If you put more tyrosine in, it makes more dopamine, which is more work for the COMT gene to do to get rid of it, and he slowed his COMT gene down because it can’t handle all that tyrosine. Where did it go? Dopamine flood. Irritability. So good things can become problematic.  

 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, absolutely. So the supplement piece is — you get supplements that can either support or can be too much and create problems, we’ve certainly got the food that we eat that can contribute to either helping or creating issues. How about things in the environment? 

 

Dr. Ben Lynch: 

Whoa, big time. I love talking about chlorine because you either drink it, breathe it, swim in it, bathe in it or shower in it — it’s everywhere. So if you’re not filtering your shower water with a simple $40 — remove the shower nozzle, screw on a chlorine shower filter, they even have some designer ones that look like stainless steel or white or black, whatever matches your design in your home, it filters out the chlorine. You will notice that your dry skin will dramatically improve, your dry, coarse hair will soften. Your dry, cracked face, your acne will improve. So chlorine damages proteins. That’s what it does. That’s why it’s in your water. It’s to destroy protein. Why would it destroy protein? because viruses and bacteria are made of proteins, so you put the chlorine in there, it breaks it. What happens when you take a nice, hot shower, a super-hot bath in a closed space? You’re inhaling chlorine gas. Chlorine gas doesn’t just go in you and leave. It’s in you. You breathe 11,000 litres a day of air. 11,000 liters. So where do all these chemicals go? Your genes have to deal with all of it. So if you are in a shower and you’re inhaling a nice, hot shower, you have more chlorine gas because it becomes more volatile — you inhale it and it uses up glutathione because chlorine gets eliminated from this compound called glutathione and its job is to get rid of hydrogen peroxide, heavy metal, arsenic, chlorine, formaldehyde, it’s under a lot of work. So the best way to keep yourself clean is to minimize work. 

If somebody comes up to you and just constantly overworks you, your performance is going to start going down, you will start not doing so well. If you’re just working sometimes periodically, you’ll be able to be on call and perform on the spot. So again, just get the shower filter, filter your drinking water — and here is a trick for moms or dads who love bath time with kids, bath times are great. Get a big container of ascorbic acid, anywhere. It doesn’t matter where you get it, it’s nice and cheap. Just get basic ascorbic acid, throw a couple of tablespoons in a hot bath. Mix it up, it will get rid of the chlorine.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Wow! I didn’t even know that!

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Yeah, it will neutralize it. It’s like no way! So what you can do to test it is you draw a hot bath, you fill it, you shut the door, you turn off the bathroom fan, you open the door and you walk in and you’re like, oh, it smells like a swimming pool. The next time you do that, so air it all up, put the fan on. And that next time you do it, draw a hot bath, let it fill up a little bit, throw in a couple of tablespoons of vitamin C, mix it up, close the door, come in… 

So it’s great stuff. Formaldehyde, everywhere — all the cabinets in our home are made with real wood. Real wood has natural aldehydes, formaldehyde is in it too, but press forward way more. Carpets, new clothes, it’s everywhere. So chemicals are your biggest ones. Sauna is the best way to get rid of them, by far, and just not exposing yourself in the first place. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So we’ve got components, we’ve got exposure to all different toxins in the environment around us, we’ve got specific nutrients. How about stress? Emotional kinds of components?

 

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Stress does a lot. And it does a lot more than I obviously know, but when you get stressed out, your body releases a bunch of neurotransmitters to allow you to focus. It makes sense. So you’ve heard this story so much, you know, if you see a lion, you’re more alert and the blood goes to your muscles so you can sprint and get the heck out of there, and you’re able to think fast. A car is flipping in the air, you’re in a car accident, it’s like time stood still. Why? Because you had this huge amount of dopamine, and you were so able to focus on every minute detail, which is also why people are driven to cocaine and methamphetamines and so on, they love that feeling of being so up, but the problem is you fall so hard when you’re back in normal life again. I lost my train of thought, your question was? 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Stress. So the stress chemicals.

Dr. Ben Lynch:

So I’m not going to do it to you because I don’t want to stress you out, but let’s say your driving and a cop is behind you and you see them in your rear-view mirror and you’re driving along, and they’re still behind you. It’s like, will you just pass me? You slow down, they’re still behind you, they’re not leaving. What’s happening? You’re starting to feel all this stuff. And then they turn on the lights, and what happens? You feel even more, and they’re still behind you. You pull over to the next lane, they take off and they’re gone. It’s like, “UUUUGHHH.” But how long does it take you to calm down? This is an interesting question for people. Does it take you hours to calm down from that? Are you able to like, “Uh, that was close”, and on you go, you’re your merry self? So that is your ability to produce the huge amount of chemicals that you took for focus and eliminate them. You’re very adaptable. Your genes are able to produce and eliminate. You’re good. 

If you’re able to produce, not eliminate — not so good. It’ll be panic attack, anxiety, go home, start screaming at people, they start screaming at you, it becomes like this whole 2 week, 3 week fight because you weren’t able to eliminate the chemicals in your brain from that car. So what happens? When you produce these neurotransmitters, they have to be eliminated, and I did not know this, Nicole, until probably 9 months ago, maybe a year ago. I knew the neurotransmitters made hydrogen peroxide, so when you eliminate them, they make ammonia and hydrogen peroxide, which then uses up your — it destroys your energy ability because ammonia is toxic and also it’s bad on your brain, and you also have hydrogen peroxide, which you need glutathione to eliminate. But these neurotransmitters also make toxic aldehydes, very toxic aldehyde, which is the main reason why alcohol is so bad. Alcohol by itself is bad. But alcohol turns into aldehydes, and your neurotransmitters turn into aldehydes too. So when you have this huge flood of neurotransmitters all the time due to stress, you’re pumping out aldehydes, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, and you’re just poisoning your brain, and your hypothalamus will literally shrink, literally shrinks from it because you’re poisoning your tissues.

Then what happens from that? You get depression, you get anxiety, you get mood-swings, you get forgetful, you go to the doctor, they put you on meds, but that’s not the problem, and then you deplete vitamins and minerals, because when you have this huge flood of neurotransmitters, you’re also using up resources. You’re using up your tyrosine, you’re using up your folate, your B12 and other things. So it’s very catabolic, and when you have that stress, you’re not able to repair things, you’re not able to digest your food, you’re not able to repair your ligaments or your bones or grow, if you’re a child. You might stunt your growth, literally because you’re using all these stressors to focus and deal with that versus growing and nurturing. So it’s very damaging. 

 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So many components of our lifestyle from what we’re exposed to in the environment around us, what we put in our bodies in the form of food and nutrients, the emotional environment with stress — so many of these things can play a role in either helping our genes do their jobs better or making it harder for them to do our jobs. You’ve talked about several specific ones. Do you think it’s important for people, especially, there are parents listening, if their child is having symptoms, they’re having challenges, maybe they have a diagnosis — do you think it’s necessary for people to go out and get a genetic test or some kind of testing or do you feel like people can get a start on this just with having some of this information and some starting tools? What are your thoughts on that?

 

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Definitely do not go get genetic testing first. Don’t do it. It’s like if your child is 4, are you going to buy a $20,000 grand piano and sell your house because it doesn’t fit and buy a house where it does fit because you think that maybe your kid’s going to like piano and maybe they’ll be really good? No, you’re not going to do that. You’re going to give them this little keyboard, maybe borrow it from a friend, stick it in a corner and go! You know? So you’ve got to start with the fundamentals and you’re not going to buy a $150 leather embossed basketball either for your kid learning to play. You’re just going to buy a regular basketball. So you’ve got to start with the basics, and the basics are starting to understand how your body works and how your lifestyle choices are affecting your body in a way that you’ve never been taught before, and that’s what Dirty Genes does. Dirty Genes is like $11 on Amazon and elsewhere. And it’s out of stock at the moment, but with COVID too, it’s the late shipping, but I think the hard cover ships faster, but you can also get it in audible, but I would really, really want you first learning how your body works, because you’ve never been officially taught this, which is a shame. It’s a shame.

If you do get genetic testing, or maybe you’ve already had genetic testing — put it to the side. Just forget everything that you’ve been reading in the Facebook groups or hearing from your doctor, unless it’s working. If it’s not working, forget what you heard from your doctors, a lot of them don’t know what they’re talking about. They might think they do, and they could be hurting you way more than you need, and a lot of times, doctors will do a genetic test and say, “Oh, you have this genetic thing, this genetic things, this genetic thing, take this supplement to supplement all this, oh this one, you need 3 supplements.” So you walk out with 16 different supplements based on your genetic report. They didn’t even ask you for any physical history or whatever, but in short, do not get genetic testing until you read Dirty Genes, until you understand Dirty Genes, until you do the soak and scrub, until you start applying these things. Because as you start cleaning your genes, what’s going to happen is you’re going to do all these changes and you’re going to start identifying what your true gene’s colors are, how your genes really work. Some will be really strong in performance and others will be not so much. But once you do the lifestyle changes, maybe add a few supplements here and there, start eating in a certain way that you need to — then the genetic testing can be useful because it will uncover and unveil opportunities for you to improve even more. So you’ve got to do the basics first, and it’s not sexy, but it’s sexy when you pick up the book and you start understanding, “Wow, I had no idea this happens!” And there’s like 4 of them per paragraph, I didn’t know about that, I didn’t know about this, I didn’t know about that. So it can get pretty thick and heavy and my recommendation with that is: If you read something that really resonates with you, it’s like “I need to do that.” Put the book down, don’t touch it for two weeks or a month and go apply that and come back to it. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And what’s so cool about that, because there are so many great practical strategies in there, is you can do these as a family, because sometimes a challenge, right — it’s like oh, I can’t get my kids to do this — You can all benefit from these things, so we start to look at how we can implement these, even just one little piece at. time, especially now parents will say, “Oh my child is so picky, my cloud won’t do this or that.” Just start with one thing, get some success and build from there, but you can do this as a family, which really gives you so many great targets then, if everybody is having some benefit from these tools. 

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Yeah, for sure, and when you do it as a family too, it’s not like Sally has some genes that are weaker or dirtier than Joe. Sally is not on the strictest diet and Joe gets away with eating Twinkies. No, it’s a team effort. If you’re gluten free, when we were gluten free — and I was rigid, so when my kids were younger, I was pretty rigid about what was in their mouth because I was in charge of that. Now that they’re older and they’re driving places and they’re going to restaurants themselves — they know how they should eat. It’s their choice. But when they were younger, I’m pretty authoritative, or whatever that word was. So now, they make their own choice. But — I lost my train of thoughts too, I need to eat! 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think what you’re probably going to say is when you try to just do that for one child, that doesn’t — it’s like we all need to be on the same team with that stuff. At least that’s what I have felt —

Dr. Ben Lynch:

100%. And let me give an example. So when you read the NOS3 chapter, NOS3 is a gene called Nitric Oxide Synthase, and it’s 3. So it tells you the position in the body where it is, so this lives in your blood vessels, and it’s job is to make Nitric Oxide. It synthesizes Nitric Oxide. Nitric Oxide Synthase 3 in your blood vessels. Pretty cool when you learn all that stuff. So it’s job is to produce Nitric Oxide, which allows your blood vessels to dilate so more blood can get through there, more oxygen can get through, more nutrients can get through, and that’s a good thing. You have warm hands and feet. My hands and feet now are warm. If your nitric oxide isn’t working, your hands and feet are cold. So Theo, our youngest, horrible mouth breather. I mean BAD mouth breather. If your kid is like this all the time, in class, at home, sleeping — I mean sleeping standing up, sitting up, it’s going to happen due to gravity, but laying down with the mouth open, no that’s not a good thing. Why? For many reasons, but one, when you breathe through your nose, you’re making nitric oxide, it allows the oxygen to be delivered and so on, so they’re getting good oxygenation, which is key, and they’ll feel better when they wake up. One of the solutions — there are a lot of recommendations in the book about how to fix that, and Theo is going through all sorts of mild facial work and dental work and tongue tie release, but we also taped his mouth closed at night. You’re like, what? You tape your kid’s mouth shut? 

I tape my mouth shut, I tape my wife’s mouth shut, Tasman and Matthew don’t mouth-breathe at night, they don’t need the tape. But mom and dad? We did and we showed it to Theo, make sure you can breathe through your nose, your fine — it sounds scary but it’s fine, and you cut a slit in the tape so they can still talk. So you take a piece of tape and you just make a quick slate in the middle so they can put it on and still move their lips, so they’re not freaked out, give them a hug at night and say everything you need to do before you put the tape on, and it was a fight in the beginning. Now he has a roll of tape by his bed and he does it every night himself, because he felt the difference in how he acts, in how he feels the next day and it’s all on his own.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So the need as parents to persevere with some of these things, and to your point, to model also — look, mom and dad are doing this too! Look, we’re going to help you with this, this, this — and then when kids see the benefit, then they can kind of take the ball and roll with it. 

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Sure. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So many more things we can get into with this, but I know we need to wrap up here. What one thing do you think is important for parents to take away from this conversation, from this idea of epigenetics, Dirty Genes — what’s one thing that you would want people to take?

Dr. Ben Lynch:

To not worry. Do not worry. I’m getting teary thinking about it. Our job as parents is to protect our kids. That to me is the biggest thing. And when you see your kid not thriving, you worry. When you see them not focusing and getting bad grades in school, you’re worried. When you see acne on their face and they’re really depressed about that, you worry! When they’re ADD and now they’re 16 and they’re driving down the wheel and you’re like, “Oh my God, they’re going to get in a wreck!”, you worry. When they’re obese at a young age, you worry. So there is all this worry involved. The good thing is your genes are super malleable. They’re young. So you both should just team up and maybe break apart, maybe get the audible version for a kid. The audible version is really good, it’s just not as comprehensive because it’s missing a lot of the recipes and the quizzes and all of that, which you need. So if you are going to do the Audible, get the Audible but get the soft cover, the paperback or the hard cover — it doesn’t matter, so you have those other tools. But I would say, number one, don’t worry. 

Easy to say, hard to do, and I would say when you’re reading the book, don’t look for things — or when you’re trying. Even if you’re not going to get the book — look for things in your life that simplify it. They don’t add complexity. A lot of people think that they need to add something to their life to make it better, but look for the things that you can remove from your life to make it better first. Go in your closet, purge. Who is that Japanese lady?

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Marie Kondo, yes!

Dr. Ben Lynch:

Watch her stuff on Netflix, you got videos. Purge. Get rid of stuff and avoidance of things is way more powerful than adding to. Simple example, you’re at work, you’re overwhelmed. Your boss comes up to you and says, “Hey, I need you on Saturday because you’re my A-Player.” A-Players typically say yes. You need to say no, and it’s going to be tough. So when they come up to you and they say hey, I need you on Saturday, you’ve got to say, “God, I really appreciate that, I love that you count on me, my kids really need me this weekend, and in fact I’ve made a rule with my spouse/partner/kids/self that I’m no longer working weekends. So if you want me to perform Monday through Friday, I’m all here, I’m going to perform for you, 100%. But I need to be there for my kids and myself. So please, I know so and so needs some more money, so ask them.” So saying no is part of that, but not worrying is big. 

So, saying no, not worrying as much, getting rid of excess, don’t add to things, get rid of things. Turn off the media, cut other things in your life that you know you’re doing that you don’t like doing but you’re doing them anyway. And then take a vacation. Like a real vacation. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I love it. The idea of worrying less, simplifying, getting back to basics, such critical foundations. This was such a wealth of information. I want to make sure that people know where they can find out more about you, about your company, the work you’re doing, the book — what’s the website?

Dr. Ben Lynch:

So the best website would be seekinghealth.com, and that’s the supplement company, but it’s also where we have a lot of informational stuff, education, online courses, and the book and so on, and then we’ve got supplements, but I do not want you buying supplements until you’ve read the book. If you really love supplements, go for an electrolyte and start with that, but I don’t want you buying a ton of supplements to try and fix your problems. I really want you simplifying first. And then my Instagram account, my Facebook accounts — very, very active on social media. So @drbenlynch on Instagram and Dr. Ben Lynch on Facebook.  

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Such great info, it amazes me the amount of information and resources that you provide in your social media. Just really, really great stuff. So we’ll put all those links with the show notes so that people can access that. Ben, can’t thank you enough for taking the time today to have this conversation, really, really appreciate it. 

Dr. Ben Lynch:

My pleasure, Nicole, thanks for having me on.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And thanks to all of you for listening to this episode, we’ll see you back here next week on The Better Behavior show.